I have a couple of articles on other sites I want to promote here. One, in this month’s issue of Religious Product News. It should be in your very own church mailbox soon. It is an article that includes 15 ways to Make More Impact with Your Ministry Communications. The other is now on the ChurchCentral.com website this week, my thoughts on Should you change your church’s name to better reach the unchurched? Thanks to the editors of these publications for the opportunity!
I will continue the order of the seminar next with an article on Nonprobablity research–Wahoo! I know you can’t wait for that! :)
From Religious Product News
How to Make More Impact with Your Ministry Communications
Meet Pastor Pete. He’s a minister with a communication problem.
His church is planning an event designed to reach out to people who don’t attend church. Since he never studied advertising or marketing, he’s not sure he knows the best strategy for getting his church’s message out into the public square. But he has a pretty good idea about what he’s going to do anyway. It is what he does – more or less – for almost every special event in his church:
- Give the event a catchy name
- Develop a logo or other graphic design to give the event more eye appeal
- Print an invitation card or develop a flyer to give away and/or mail out to people who live in the neighborhoods around the church
- Make announcements in the church worship service, encouraging members to invite their friends
- Give out invitation cards, door hangers or yard signs to promote the event
- Post an announcement on the church sign
- Put the information in the church newsletter
- Send out e-mail announcements
- Mail reminder cards or letters and call the leading members in the church, mobilizing them to get the word out
- Post information about the event on the church’s Web site
- Send a news release in hopes of getting a mention in the town newspaper and other media
- Look into buying an advertisement in the newspaper, getting a radio spot, or even trying television commercials
- Consider leasing a billboard to advertise the program
Pastor Pete has seen these tactics work before, so he feels confident in his approach. But he also knows that sometimes it doesn’t work. He can’t quite figure out what’s “missing” when it doesn’t work and what is “there” when it does. All he knows is to pray and do what he feels he should do to promote this event.
Ministry leaders find themselves in Pastor Pete’s shoes several times a year. Most churches have tried the ideas listed above. Pete has a lot of great ideas about promotion, but churches like his that use ideas like those above are seeing diminishing results from their efforts. Tactics that used to work are no longer as effective. Something is broken somewhere! Ministry leaders wonder, like Pastor Pete does, “What’s happening?” Read the rest of the article here
From Church Central
Should you change your church’s name to better reach the unchurched?
Dave Spencer, co-pastor of a church in Concord, New Hampshire, was interviewed recently by National Public Radio about why his church felt the need to drop its overt affiliation with the Baptist denomination by changing the church’s name from First Baptist Church to Center Point Church.
“Someone was willing to go, and all of the sudden they found it was a Baptist church. That just kind of freaked them out and they pulled back,” Spencer said. “And that story would be repeated over and over again.”
Many pastors are convinced that the name of their church is holding them back from effectively reaching their community. But can a church’s name really be that important? Wouldn’t the church we call Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian by any other name still “smell as sweet?” Read more of the article here
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